Gaur sculptors grapple with hardship and want, their art is on the verge of fading out

Gaur sculptors grapple with hardship and want, their art is on the verge of fading out

"Our fate is as hard as the rocks and even the gods do not want to give it shape." - Bhagwan Das Gaur

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Farzand Ahmed

March 31, 1986

ISSUE DATE: March 31, 1986

UPDATED: January 24, 2014 12:07 IST

His face is gaunt and dry. His frame is emaciated and his fingers have been worked to the bone. With these fingers, Bhagwan Das Gaur has chipped and chiselled images of the gods from lifeless stone over the years, working out a rocky symphony with hammer and chisel. The ravages of his 70 long and barren years are all too obvious as he spreads out his calloused hands and says: "Nothing has changed in my life. Our fate is as hard as the rocks and even the gods do not want to give it shape."

"Our fate is as hard as the rocks and even the gods do not want to give it shape."Bhagwan Das Gaur

He is not alone in his suffering. In the village of Pattharkatti at the foot of the rocky Vishnupad range, 37 km northeast of Gaya, the sound of hammer and chisel reverberates throughout the day as this small community of Brahmin artisans tries to carve its destiny out of barren stone. They are the descendants of the 900 Gaur Brahmin artisans who were brought from Rajasthan about 300 years ago by the Maharani of Indore to build the Vishnupad Temple at Gaya and stayed on, giving the village its name.

But little has changed for the artisans since that ancient era. While the artisans grapple with hardship and want, their art is on the verge of fading out. "Lack of state patronage, lack of raw material, exploitation by middlemen and poverty have led to the death of this rare traditional art," says Rama Swaroop Gaur, an aged sculptor. And Ramesh Chandra Gaur adds: "We have been making Vishnu, Parvati, Ganesh, Saraswati, Laxmi and Buddha for generations but none of them has come to our rescue."

The artisans get next to nothing for their work. Ramesh Chandra laments that it takes between one and two weeks to produce one piece. The middlemen buy it for Rs 50 and sell it at exorbitant prices ranging from Rs 500 to Rs 5,000. The artisans have little option since they cannot handle the distribution and sale on their own. Says Bhagwan Das: "Everybody tries to exploit us. Art pieces worth Rs 2 lakh are lying with us unsold and uncared for."

The situation grew so bad that the whole community would have fled the area had it not been for the then district collector of Gaya, J.C. Mathur, an art-loving ICS officer, who used his discretionary powers and helped them by distributing free food, helping them get loans and setting up a cooperative society. Later, the Government also set up a Pashanpatra Vikas Kendra (stoneware development institute) in the village.

Artisans at Pattharkatti with their works: rocky road

But this has hardly helped matters. Dinanath, skilled artisan at the institute, asserts that the fear of a bleak future and lack of official patronage has all the artisans in the grip of insecurity with barely 20 artisan families now left in the village.

To make matters worse, the artisans are now finding it difficult to get raw material. The Vishnupad range, which provided most of the stone for the Vishnupad temple, used to be rich in special stones like Tamra, Motia, Kasauti, Dham-Mahua and Pagijeet. But parts of the range are caving in as the artisans have practically tapped its reserves to the core over the years.

The Government, on its part, says it is doing all that it can to improve the lot of the artisans. Minister of State for Handlooms and Handicrafts Khalied Rashed Saba says that the Government has decided to set up a Rs 18-lakh common facility centre at the village and Rs 3.18 lakh have already been released for the construction of sheds and clearing the stone mines.

Saba claims that the Government will open two showrooms exclusively for these artisans - one in Patna and the other outside Bihar. Efforts would also be made to create a market for these objects outside India through the export corporation and the Government would make an in-depth study of their problems."We are committed to preserve this art," he added.

But the villagers are pessimistic about the future. Such promises and studies have been made in the past and have hardly helped - witness the continued migration from the village and the destitute state of those who have remained and now visualise a rocky end to their rare craft unless the gods they make so lovingly finally decide to smile on them.

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